Posts Tagged ‘ vengeance ’

Tweets & Rants 10 March 2013: Matthew 24:15-35

has but one word of caution to the church when reading Matthew 23-24 and that is to heed the warning of Romans 11:21-22! @WeeManWest

Matthew 24:16 We cannot miss the specificity of this command. Those who are in Judea. That is a specific place in which Jerusalem and the Israelites lived in Jesus’ day. This enforces the context from Matthew 23 and Matthew 24:1 that Jesus was speaking to His disciples about the coming destruction of Jerusalem that they would indeed see happen in 70AD.

Matthew 24:18 Jesus’ instruction was that when these things begin to occur in Jerusalem the only option will be to flee for their lives. They will have to forsake everything if they hope to survive.

Such isn’t a bad principle to apply to ourselves today. Would we be able to leave all of our possessions behind if our lives depended on it?

Matthew 24:27 Jesus is talking about His coming in covenant judgment against Israel and Jerusalem. He is not speaking of His return. The Roman armies invaded from the east, instead of the more natural west.

Matthew 24:28 Two notes here. Jesus is prophesying the destruction of Jerusalem. He is letting His listeners know that indeed Jerusalem would be full of corpses and that that vultures/birds of prey.

However, another note is that the word in the Greek used here is the word for eagle. Eagles don’t happen to go after carrion, yet the eagle was the Roman Military standard. The “eagles” on the roman standards (flags) would surround Jerusalem before it would be destroyed. Luke says this very thing in his account of Jesus teaching.

Matthew 24:29 After the tribulation of those days, the days of vengeance in which Jerusalem would be left desolate and full of corpses surrounded by birds of prey, we immediately see a reference to both a literal and symbolic understanding.

The sun, moon, and stars would be blotted out by the fire that would engulf Jerusalem as Rome burned Jerusalem to the ground. Anyone who has been close to a fire at just one location should be acquainted with smoke’s ability to block out the sun. I recall how dark it was in New York City in the days that followed 9/11 as that cloud of smoke covered the city.

Imagine what impact the smoke of an entire city being burned down would have on the sky. Enough of an impact that the sun, moon, and stars would be unseen until the city was burned down.

The symbolic reference requires us to understand the symbolism in Scripture of the sun, moon, and stars. In order to get this understanding we must return to the book of beginnings, the book of Genesis.

When God created the ‘lights in the expanse of the heavens’ He designed them to “be for signs’ (Genesis 1:14) and they were also to ‘give light upon the earth’ (Genesis 1:15) so we should recognize the immediate symbolism.

Then two great lights are made, a greater one to ‘rule the day’ and a lesser one to ‘rule the night’ (Genesis 1:16) and a reason for their ‘rule’ is given in that they are to (Genesis 1:18) ‘rule over the day and over the night, and to separate the light from the darkness.

What we see is the symbolic picture presented to us in the sun, moon, and stars as the religious authorities put in place so ‘rule’ and ‘separate the light from the darkness’.

Then we arrive at Joseph’s story.

Joseph dreamt that the sun, moon, and 11 stars bowed before him. Jacob (Israel) realized the dream represented himself, his wives, and his children bowing before Joseph.

Israel, given authority by God to shine its light in the world, lost its place of authority in the kingdom and was shaken and darkened in its day of covenant judgment in 70AD.

Matthew 24:30 The sign of the Son of Man appears. What is the sign? It is the great cloud of smoke raised up as Jerusalem is burned to the ground. He is coming on the clouds of judgment. Those clouds are dark clouds of billowing smoke as the city was burned to the ground by the Roman armies in 70AD.

At this billowing plume, all the tribes of the land, specifically the tribes of Israel, will mourn when they realize their day of judgment has come.

Matthew 24:31 He will send out His messengers with a loud trumpet. This is the dispersion that would take the church OUT of Jerusalem and into the nations. We are part of His messengers still today gathering His elect from the four winds.

Jesus was stating emphatically that the new age, the Gospel age, was soon to come upon the entire earth. However, the Law age had to come to an end, and it did so decisively in 70AD.

Matthew 24:32 As if anyone had missed the point that this was about Israel, Jesus brings in the fig tree which is one of Israel’s national symbols.

Matthew 24:34 Jesus repeats Himself from Matthew 23:36 so that it couldn’t be more clear. The very generation Jesus was speaking to was indeed going to see Jerusalem destroyed and desolate suffering covenant vengeance, the coming of the Son of Man on the clouds of judgment. He could not have been any more clear!

His word came to pass, 40 years later (a generation, i.e. the wilderness wandering) Jerusalem would lie desolate.

2013
03/10
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Tweets & Rants 9 March 2013: Matthew 24:1-14; Romans 6:15-23; Psalm 56; Numbers 21-22

thinks Balaam is probably best described as a prophet for profit who made a donkey of himself! Num 22:32 #itscheesyIknow @WeeManWest

believes the context of “these things” is the desolation and destruction of Jerusalem that Jesus had just prophesied. Mat 24:1 @WeeManWest

Matthew 24:3 The “things” the disciples are asking Jesus about pertain to the context. Jesus had just prophesied the blood vengeance upon Jersusalem, its desolation, and the destruciton of its temple. They want to know when it is going to happen.

Jesus’ coming and Jesus’ return are two separate Scriptural concepts of which one cannot differentiate without understanding the writings of the prophets.

Jesus’ coming is about His vengeance, His judgment, which He had just prophesied was going to come to Jerusalem.

Jesus’ return will occur at the last day of His and the Final Judgment will occur at that point.

The end of the age? What age? This is not pointing to the end of time but rather the end of the age they were in that was dominated by the Law and the Temple in Jersualem. When would that age end? 70 AD!

Matthew 24:14 After giving the disciples a series of signs that have been obeserved in every generation since, He gives them a very specific sign. Gospel proclamation in all nations.

The early church was able to achieve this feet, though on a limited scale, as Paul quotes in Romans.

I do believe that before the end of this age, the age that began with the cross, we will again encounter…and hopefully be a part of…a final great movement of the gospel.

Romans 6:16 This rule applies not only in the realm of sin and righteousness but also in the realm of life. Where is your obedience? If you are obeying God you will be clean and clear from obedience to the many forms of idolatry in our day.

We are a slave to whomever we choose to obey. May we choose obedience to Christ.

Romans 6:22 Our life focus becomes Christ Jesus and living out His righteousness in this dark world. Such is the best fruit imaginable.

Psalm 56:1 We desperately need the grace of God at work in our lives. We are trampled and attacked yet God is graciously working out things in this world for our everlasting benefit in the age to come.

Psalm 56:9 What greater assurance can we have than this, that in all the trials we face, God is for us. Even if the trial takes our very lives we know two things: #1 He will have His day of judgment and vengeance; #2 He is our reward.

Numbers 21:5 They loathed the food of God. How rebellious we are?

Numbers 21:9 God allowed a plague of serpents to come among the people. If they were bitten they died. When they plead for mercy God instructs Moses to put a bronze serpent on a staff and to tell the people to simply look upon the bronze serpent when they are bitten and they will live.

We are all bitten by the serpent and sin is killing us. Yet, we simply look to the cross in which Jesus Christ hung the serpent and we will live!

Numbers 22:22 God was angered because Balaam went. Balaam knew that God was not going to allow him to curse Israel. Balaam went because he thought that surely he could turn a profit out of this venture.

Numbers 22:31 Balaam was blind to God’s interference in his journey. God had to allow a donkey to speak to him to deliver him from his maddening quest for wealth. Balaam could now see the angel of the Lord standing with his sword drawn to strike him down.

Balaam had thought his donkey was making a mockery of him, yet his donkey was merely trying to spare his life. It was Balaam who was making a donkey out of himself.

Numbers 22:32 Balaam was a prophet for profit. He was perverse in his quest for wealth.

Numbers 22:35 Balaam was permitted to go, yet he was only allowed to speak to them what he is told by God. Balaam will break this covenant chasing wealth as we will see.

2013
03/09
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Tweets & Rants 8 March 2013: Matthew 23:25-39; Romans 6:1-14; Psalm 55; Numbers 18-20

believes that Jesus’ kept His word, Jerusalem was burned to the ground by the Roman in 70AD. Mat 23:36 @WeeManWest

believes the context for Matthew 24 is Matthew 23, Jesus was speaking specifically about that generation of Jerusalemites. @WeeManWest

Matthew 23:25 The Pharisees made an outward show of religion, but on the inside they were a mess. Jesus says they were full of greed and self-indulgence. True religion is free from greed and self-indulgence.

Do we have greed? Are we prone to indulge our own selfish desires at the expense of others? We may very well have a little Pharisee within us as well.

Matthew 23:28 The Pharisees inner problems also consisted of hypocrisy and lawlessness. They were outwardly the keepers and enforcers of the law and yet inwardly they were the hypocrite, breaking the very law they punished others for not keeping.

Churches are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness. We ourselves are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness. The rules always seem to point and apply to someone other than ourselves.

Matthew 23:32 They did indeed spend the next 40 years filling up the measure of their fathers guilt in their persecution of the church.

 Matthew 23:35 The sentence of blood vengeance was soon to come upon Jerusalem. As a matter of fact they would ask for it as Jesus stood before Pilate.

Matthew 23:36 The vengeance of God did come upon that generation as the entire city was burned down in 70AD by the Romans.

Matthew 23:38 Jesus speaks to this city that killed prophets and stones those sent. This same city is the one that Jesus had spoken about in several parables. Jesus now promises that it was going to be left desolate. His word came true in 70AD.

Romans 6:4 We have new life for we have been raised in Christ Jesus’ resurrection. We share in His resurrection just as we share in His death. Sin is inescapable otherwise.

Romans 6:7 We cannot understand Paul’s point unless we grasp the full weight of this statement. We absolutely cannot be set free from our sins unless we die. The law carries weight while we live. So how do we die and find this freedom? We die on the cross in Christ.

However, we were also raised from death in Christ. He is the first resurrection. He is the firstfruits. We share in the first resurrection in Him and as Paul describes in Ephesians, we reign in Him as well.

Romans 6:11 Paul says we must, by faith, consider ourselves to have been dead in Christ and raised from the dead in Christ if we are ever going to have power to be set free from our sin. We share in Christ’s resurrection which Paul describes in 1 Corinthians 15 as the firstfruits and the first resurrection. Please don’t miss the powerful value of the experience you have shared in Christ Jesus.

Romans 6:14 Sin only loses dominion when we die as Paul just wrote in verse 7. Sin will have no dominion over us who have escaped from the law through death and resurrection. We are no longer under the law by grace through faith.

Psalm 55:13 One of the most destructive trials we can endure is the trial of betrayal. Betrayal cuts us to our very heart.

Psalm 55:21 This is a fitting description of how the betrayer’s speech is so painful to endure. While they appear to be with you and on your side they are instead drawing a sword against you.

Psalm 55:22 Do we have this assurance today? We must trust that God will keep us as His own, that He will never allow us to be moved away from Him.

Numbers 18:19 All the holy contributions given to the Lord at the Tabernacle belong to the priests and levites for their food.

Numbers 18:20 The priests and Levites are not to own land among Israel for God Himself is their portion. They are His and He is theirs.

Numbers 18:26 The priests and Levites were to present to the Lord a tithe of the tithe, basically, a tenth of the holy gifts.

Numbers 19:9 Here we see that the ashes of a flawless red heifer were required for the water of purification.

Numbers 19:12 If someone became unclean because of a dead body they would have to be washed on the 3rd and the 7th day. We have a picture of the dual resurrection. The first resurrection is Christ and us in Christ by grace through faith, the second is on the last day at His return.

Numbers 20:12 Moses and Aaron are now disqualified and will not lead Israel into the promised land. They honored themselves by saying they would bring water out of the rock and then hitting it rather than speaking to the rock as God had commanded.

2013
03/08
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Tweets & Rants 28 February 2013: Leviticus 23-27

is troubled that applying the death sentence to a murderer is inhumane but killing the unborn is permissible! Lev 24:17 @WeeManWest

Leviticus 23:3 We do no work for our salvation, we rest in Christ’s work. The Sabbath is a picture of our daily rest in the work of Christ.

Leviticus 23:5 Passover and the feast of unleavened bread are linked. This pictures Christ passing over our sins through His death on the cross as our sacrificial lamb. The unleavened bread pictures the cleansed life we receive from Christ through the cross.

Leviticus 23:10 The firstfruits is a picture for us of Christ, the first fruits of the resurrection and those of us who share in His resurrection by faith. This is the first resurrection, from death into life.

Leviticus 23:17 We received the leaven of God when we received the Holy Spirit of God. The feast of weeks pictures Pentecost.

Leviticus 23:24 It is believed by some that Jesus actual birthday is sometime around or near the feast of trumpets. Trumpets is a picture of God’s word coming to His people. The Trumpets also pictures the coming judgment upon Israel after rejecting Christ.

Leviticus 23:28 The Day of Atonement pictures both the atonement made for us by Christ and the coming judgment upon Israel for having rejected Christ and ignored the Trumpets.

Leviticus 23:34 Booths pictures for us the current age, in which we dwell in this wilderness, keeping His commands while awaiting our entry into the promised land of the new heavens and new earth.

Leviticus 24:2 The lamps represent the light that God shines in this world through His people. We should shine His light continually in all that we do.

Leviticus 24:7 The bread is our daily bread. It pictured the daily bread that God provides for His priesthood…which we all are in Christ.

Leviticus 24:17 We have become a culture of death. If only we would listen to the law of God and demand a life for a life. We could deter a lot of the violence. Instead, we find it inhumane to give a death sentence to a convicted murderer and permissible to rob an innocent unborn child of its life in the womb!

Leviticus 25:10 Christ provided our Jubilee. We are the trumpet sound throughout all the earth proclaiming liberty.

Leviticus 25:35 Note that even in poverty, they were to help one another. Yet, they were not to remain as freeloaders but as hired workers. We’ve become a nation of freeloaders.

Leviticus 26:12 God’s intention is to dwell among us. He desires that we obey His law. Christ fulfilled that and places His righteousness upon us so that God may dwell in us. Israel’s covenant was based on their obedience and they failed.

Leviticus 26:28 Here in this text we see 5 episodes of disobedience, 4 of which are punished 7 fold. What other book of the bible contains 4 sets of 7s? The book of Revelation. Revelation is the prophecy of the covenant vengeance upon Israel.

Leviticus 26:40 However, a day will come when the Israelite people return to Christ. Such day has not yet arrived.

Leviticus 27:29 Devoted things become holy to God. In Christ, we devote ourselves to death in Christ. His death becomes our death. His life becomes our life.

2013
02/28
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Tweets & Rants 20 February 2013: Matthew 18:15-35; Acts 25:13-27; Psalm 41; Leviticus 11-13

is startled how we take a verse about church discipline and make it about healing…where 2 or 3 are gathered…Mat 18:20 @WeeManWest

“If a man’s hair falls out from his head, he is bald; he is clean.” Lev 13:40 #goodtoknow @WeeManWest

Matthew 18:17 This is the final phase of church discipline. After you have gone individually to a person who is sinning against you and have made no means, then you go to one or two other believers. If that doesn’t work then present the issue to the whole church. If that still doesn’t work the person in the wrong is to be dis-fellowshipped for a time. All in all Christ is saying we should exhaust the means available to us to put an end to conflict within the body.

Matthew 18:20 I would really like for someone to explain to me how a verse contextually used to discuss the application of church discipline has somehow been twisted to mean that if two or three of us agree on a certain activity God should perform, whether it be healing, prosperity, etc, that God has to do that for us?

We cannot interpret a text while divorcing it from the context in which we find it being used.

The context is two or three agreeing on church discipline, to bind someone under church discipline or to loose someone from church discipline. This text is not about healing or prosperity but instead it is about church discipline.

Matthew 18:21 With the talk of binding and loosing, which Peter was already told the church would be empowered to do, it is fitting that Peter would ask this question. How often should we show mercy?

Biblically, we should ALWAYS show mercy. This is a very difficult practice because some people will do horrible and terrible things to us and those we love in this world. Yet Christ commands us to show them mercy. Let that simmer for a little while.

Matthew 18:34 We are to be people of mercy because we have been shown great mercy. Mercy is so difficult to show when we have been devastatingly wronged, but it is what God calls us to show.

Acts 25:23 Leaders in this world like to show out in their “authority”. Here we have great pomp and pageantry around King Agrippa. Yet the man most authorized by God in the room will slink in held by chains.

Psalm 41:1 We should be motivated by the Holy Spirit with a care and concern for those in poverty. We won’t necessarily be able to deliver all the poor in this world by ourselves but we should each do as we can to help them in their plight.

Psalm 41:10 Jesus would surely be raised up from the dead and He did indeed have His vengeance upon Israel in 70AD.

Leviticus 11:3 We see hidden spiritual discernment found in God’s detail of clean versus unclean land animals. Clean land animal will have a hoof that is cloven and chew the cud.

The cloven-hoof pictures for us a separation from the world. Whereas the other animals walk barefoot, these are not so exposed. They are separated and set apart.

Chewing the cud pictures for us our meditation on the word of God. We should continually bring back up what we have read and digest it again and again and again until we have chewed all the meaning and application from the text that we possibly can.

Leviticus 11:9 We see similar principles among the sea creatures. They must have fins and scales.

Fins for guidance in the sea as we should all have the guidance of the Holy Spirit as we maneuver through this world around us.

Scales for protection from the sea (just like the hoof). The scales are a barrier to the sea around them. They are separated and set apart.

Leviticus 11:13 The birds that are unclean are those that eat flesh. We are not to live by the flesh but by the Spirit of God.

Leviticus 11:20 The insects that are clean to eat are those with jointed legs and the ability to escape from the earth that feast of the grass of the field. It’s about being separate and not eating the flesh.

Leviticus 11:44 The point is that God wants His people to be consecrated, set apart (sanctified) and holy. The clean animals point us to the spiritual principles of holiness.

We should be separate, set apart, sanctified from this world we live in.

We should meditate continually on God’s word.

We should have the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

We should be led by the Spirit of God and not feast on the flesh.

We should be ready to escape this world.

We should feast only on the word of God.

Leviticus 12:3 I’ve seen a lot of people get bent out of shape about the double the period of uncleanness in giving birth to a girl versus giving birth to a boy. However, we can’t miss that the boy is circumcised while the girl is not. I think this may be part of the reason for the difference in time. I believe the circumcision makes the difference.

Yet, it could also be that girls are just so special that the whole process takes twice as long :).

Leviticus 13:8 Leprosy is a disease that gets into and under the skin. Leprosy is a picture of our sin. Leprosy is difficult to overcome.

Some things only appear to be bad on the surface, but given time everything works out ok.

Yet other things really are a problem of the heart and require divine intervention in order to be healed.

Leviticus 13:15 Leprosy, if bad enough, would expose the raw flesh underneath through the wounds. However, if healed the flesh would be again covered up.

How often do we, through our sinfulness, give full exposure to the fact that we are following the lead of our flesh and not the Spirit of God?

Leviticus 13:46 A leprous person had to wear torn clothes, let their hair hang free, and cover their upper lip crying out their uncleanness. They must dwell in solitude outside of the camp.

We must be willing to pronounce our uncleanness and to face solitude outside the camp to be fruitful for Jesus Christ. His most fruitful moment was on a cross outside the camp as He bore our uncleanness upon Himself.

2013
02/20
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